mouthful of forevers
by concreteskies
Summary: Support Group AU. "And until then we can just be two people trying to figure things out."
1. Chapter 1

_I am not the first person you loved.  
You are not the first person I looked at  
with a mouthful of forevers. We  
have both known loss like the sharp edges  
of a knife. We have both lived with lips  
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came  
unannounced in the middle of the night.  
Our love came when we'd given up  
on asking love to come. I think  
that has to be part  
of its miracle.  
This is how we heal.  
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You  
will hold me like I'm hope. Our arms  
will bandage and we will press promises  
between us like flowers in a book._

_Clementine von Radics_

* * *

The air is crisp with the early melancholy of November and every beat of her heels on the pavement resonates as the soundtrack of impending doom.

"It will be so good for you."

"Support groups have the best record in these cases."

She hates that no one is able to voice the actual words. Least of all herself. She hates that she can't save herself from this, hates that whenever she tries to speak her heart seems to climb up her vertebrae and into her mouth, until everything in her head becomes static and she feels like all those unspoken words might choke her to death.

Most of all she hates herself. For becoming this.

The cold clings to her chest and climbs under her skin where it constricts the strings that are rooted in the jagged skin of her scar until she feels like the pain could kill her. She pulls her jacket closer and ducks her head in an attempt to hide from the winter breeze, although it goes unrewarded and so the only thing she can do is to pick up her pace and all but run along the pavement.

The house looks like all the others. Brick wall, black door and all. She feels her heart ball up into a fist and she doesn't know what to do about it and so she just reaches out to pull the door open.

The inside is white. There are white walls with nothing else to show for and she quickly makes her way over to the already awaiting elevator.

Her heels crash on the floor with more momentum than seems appropriate and her breaths ghost through the silence like gunshots. She hates that she is out of breath from the walk here. She hates that she can't rely on her body to carry her anymore.

She hates that she doesn't know how to carry her own weight anymore.

She finally reaches the door she is looking for, a plate reading the words, "Dr. Michael George. Therapist" and she asks herself how this is better than just going to one-on-one sessions in the first place.

Her hand holds a slight tremble when she lets her fingers wrap around the door knob and she wonders when she will stop being this silent earthquake.

She bites down on her lower lip, careful not to put too much vigor into the bite as not to draw blood. She could still turn around. She could leave this place that smells uncomfortably strong like hospital sanitizers and go back home. Surely if she'd wait a while she could re-apply for duty without psychological clearance.

Except she knows better.

The words of her new captain, Victoria Gates, resonate all too clearly through her mind. "Don't come back until you can handle it, Detective."

And so she nods at herself, eyes becoming steel and her jaw tingling with the strain she has on it and she counts to three before she pulls the door open and enters as an inferno in high heels.

* * *

A woman, who introduced herself as Leila Marie Cox is talking about the loss of her husband and her love for cognac and Kate's mind wanders.

She tries not to look at him. The man sitting opposite from her. The man with the ruffled hair and eyes that hold a thunder storm at bay.

And she thinks about the way her heart fell flat when he had introduced himself. "I'm Richard Castle."

She knows that name.

But it doesn't matter.

He's staring at his hands and his lips are cursive lines with stories of their own. His shoulders seem hunched, as if something so sad had encroached itself into the junction of his neck to always keep him company.

She regards the people seated with her again. They are ten plus Dr. George. All kinds of different people with different skin colors, hair and sad eyes.

Her eyes travel to the windows across the room. They are high-framed and open the sight to a tree with empty branches. It seems to reach out into the sky, slender fingers clinging to a hint of freedom and she thinks about the autumn one year ago when she was up in her father's cabin. She watched the leaves dying and the seasons change while she was trying to live but somehow it was harder than it was supposed to be and she was left bare and empty just as the trees.

"Kate," Dr. George's voice is dark and his eyes as still as the day and she thinks that if voices could be tuned for a certain job, his was made to be a therapist. "Would you like to say something?"

She realizes that at this point everyone except for her and Castle has spoken. She glances over at him and finds he is already looking. His eyes hold something so heavy she can't break their gaze and just manages to choke out a, "no".

She wonders when speaking has become this difficult. It's definitely been a while since she had used her voice and it seems to have forgotten its purpose. The concavities of her mouth are too wide, hold too many echoes she doesn't want to hear anymore and she is scared that every word might trigger them off.

"Okay," he doesn't dig deeper and she is grateful.

"Richard?"

He shakes his head.

She only ever saw him on book jackets and high-polished magazines, with laughing eyes and a bright smile and she wonders how he lost it.

Not that she cares, of course.

* * *

Castle is the only one immediately going for the door alongside her. There is coffee and some baked goods for after but neither of them seems particularly interested in staying longer than necessary and so she finds herself walking along the halls next to Richard Castle.

They have to wait for the elevator to reach their floor and the silence is becoming strained.

"Hey, at least we're still alive," his voice is deep and with a strange edge to it, but his lips hold the resemblance of a smile as he looks at her.

She is really not sure what the hell he was expecting to happen at a support group meeting.

"What-?" she is also apparently not sure how to formulate a question.

"Well, when you stepped inside you looked about ready to kill every single one of us."

"Well I guess you're lucky I didn't find a reason to," the elevator arrives and she is astounded by the ease of the words on her lips.

"I'm filled with relief." They enter together and he presses the button for the ground floor.

"You should be, I have years of training to show for."

"As a ninja?" he asks and he seems so honestly enthusiastic about his absurd theory her throat seems to tingle and her lips stretch in ways she isn't used to anymore and it takes her a while to realize she is smiling. It feels weird rather than comfortable but it still ghosts along her white lips and only for a second she remembers those days when she was nineteen and it was normal.

"No, as a detective."

They leave the door and enter the New Yorker sidewalk together, apparently about to head in different directions.

"Well then Detective, I guess I'll see you next week."

"I guess you will."

* * *

She wakes up and her heart is in her throat beating so hard she thinks it might shred the confines of her ribcages and just escape the debris of her body. Not that she blames it. She doesn't want to stay either.

Her eyes are still caught in the web of pictures her dreams had captured her in. Too green grass and blue skies. Blood on her fingers and people yelling. Flashes of lightning coming from a fired gun. And her small heart that is too weak to hold all that she is.

There are sounds everywhere and her arms come around her waist to hold herself together. Sometimes she's not sure how many pieces she has broken herself into. She just knows that porcelain can't be fixed without leaving a crack.

Breathing is hard and it shouldn't be. And she hates that she has to lie still for a while until she can convince the air to let her live.

She hates this.

And she hates herself.

Her hands press onto her closed eyelids, hoping to dismantle the weight of the scenery behind and it takes her a while to realize it's Wednesday.

The only day she actually has a destination and a task to perform.

She misses her old self, the one that had a purpose.

It's not like she wasn't damaged then, but she was able to function without the sum of her fears, of her anxieties and pain limiting her. She was able to be something other than a complete mess.

* * *

She doesn't speak up when Dr. George asks how their weeks have been and whether there was something to share and neither does he.

She watches the clock as the seconds hand moves along, observes the way it always seems to hesitate a little before the full minute, only to then jump of the cliff and into the oblivion of a new minute.

"Kate is there something you would like to say?"

Dr. George asks again, and realistically she knows that she should. She will only ever get cleared for duty if she takes this seriously and begins talking. Yet she can't find the words to explain how she feels. How does she explain feeling as if at some point her heart would just stutter and collapse on itself, as if her ribcages weren't able to hold all the pain inside and that she fears that at some point she will just spontaneously combust.

How does she explain that sometimes she feels as if she is drowning in emptiness while her heart holds so much fear she can hardly breathe. How could she ever possibly make him understand? And even if he did, who would ever clear her for duty after realizing what a fucking mess she is?

And so she lets her voice soar and speaks with a certainty that makes her think that maybe she should have become an actress. "This week was actually very good for me. I have been feeling much better."

She doesn't mention Friday when she sat in front of her mirror, crying at her reflection and the sound of her sobs as they scattered the darkness. She doesn't mention Saturday when she did chins and push-ups until her chest was on fire and she couldn't breathe and she most certainly doesn't mention the tremble in her hands on Monday when she held them under cold water to stop her mind from craving whiskey to finally escape the hold of her thoughts and fears.

She just smiles in a way that hurts and watches as Dr. George nods and moves on to talk to one Anna Rivera, scribbling notes into his notebook.

She finds Castle's eyes on her, observing her intently. She shifts under his gaze and her fingers clasp together in her lap.

His brows are furrowed and his eyes tell her that he sees much more of the silent war within than she likes.

She kind of hates him for that.

* * *

The weeks pass. Some are good and the breaths come easy and her heart seems to be in place. Some are hard and have her flinching at her own shadow and lying awake at night, palm pressed to her chest and listening to her own heartbeat to convince her it is still there.

She doesn't talk.

And neither does he.

Not that she pays him attention.

No, not at all.

Sometimes she thinks she wants to tell them. That right in this moment she could let her voice soar and share with them that she is scared when there is no light in rooms. That she sometimes has to take an hour before leaving her apartment to piece herself together and place that mask of strength and determination so that no one sees how fragile this shell is, how hollow as well.

She wants to ask them so desperately what to do when the breath gets tangled and the heart takes so much space that there is just no room for breaths and air and how to calm her arms when they shiver with the phantom weight of everything she keeps inside.

And she so desperately wants to know what to do when there are images stuck in her head everywhere, at every turn and every glance into a mirror and every sound tears at them and pulls them into focus and they switch so fast she could collapse. She wants to know how to escape her own filmography, the scenery of her mind and it fucking hurts that she can't speak up.

Even though she is sure no one would know.

She sounds insane even to her own ears.

And as much as she is scared of the images and the memories, she is way more scared of the abyss of her own mind. Because there is no bright green exit sign to your thoughts, no voice telling you, "in case of emergency use the doors to your left and right".  
And so she just sits still on her chair, fingers clasped and lips sealed, confining all those words within her chest.

She wishes she could open up.

She watches the trees outside the window. They blossom late that year. And March already begins to end when they turn bright green.

Doctor George still asks her every time whether there was something she'd like to share and every time she shakes her head and smiles, "I'm good." An ordinary lie.

He uses it too.

* * *

The session is like the others. She rejects talking and gets lost in her mind until the clock strikes and she can leave. It's so unsurprisingly boring that she is almost used to hearing all those stories by people that are braver than her. People that can talk about all the things that hurt without feeling as if the world would collapse if they did, and even if they do, they still have the courage to actually speak. She wishes she were one of them because then at least she'd have a good track record here.

She gets up as usual, reaches for her black leather jacket and walks over to the door.

Except today, for once, there is a change in routine. And she is not sure she likes it.

"Kate," it's Anna, the Spanish lady, whose daughter died from cancer. Anna, who yet always manages to smile at her with all the sun she has left in her eyes to make her feel better about herself. Anna, who is now standing at the table filled with baked goods and tea and looks a little frightened.

"Why don't you stay with us today?" Her accent has the words floating through the air, forms them in a way that makes them seem less of a threat, less of an impending catastrophe. They are round and soft like polished glass and maybe she can stay today.

She keeps her jacket on and brushes her hair back before she moves over to the group of women surrounding the cookie plate on the table. She only knows Anna. The rest of them are somewhat of a mystery. She knows all of them have spoken in the group at least once, but she still can't even remember all their first names.

And she hates that she has become like this.

Before she reaches the group she decides to go for tea first. It isn't necessarily her first choice and she would prefer coffee over tea any time but she still isn't ready for the rush of caffeine adding to the swirls and churns of anxiety deep in her stomach and so she grabs one of the cardboard cups and pours herself a cup of what seems to be Peppermint tea.

"I didn't think you'd stay," she hears from behind and the tea pot slips from her fingers and has boiling hot water spilling everywhere over her hands and wrists.

It doesn't hurt as much as she would have expected, as maybe it would have in another life. With less pain. But she still feels aching blisters starting to build on her paper skin and she hisses a "fuck" from under her breath.

"Shit," Castle says at the same time and quickly reaches out for napkins to press onto her skin.

"You have to cool that," he seems worried and his eyes hold the same expression as her father's when she fell from a tree when she was seven.

"It's fine," she replies and just wipes off the liquid, ignoring the soaring pain underneath her skin.

They have gathered the attention of the group and she cringes at their worried faces.

"I'm really sorry Kate," Castle says and she believes him.

"It's fine," she repeats and tries to give him a reassuring smile.

Anna hands her a towel soaked in cold water that she got from god knows where and Kate accepts it with a tight smile.

"Thank you."

"So why did you stay?" She asks Castle then, trying change the focus away from her burned skin.

"Oh, I don't know, I started staying a couple weeks ago, it's actually quite fun."

She nods. Not sure how this is his idea of fun.

"So you are a Detective?" He asks and it stings her in unexpected places.

"I was," she sees the next question burning in his eyes, "can we not talk about this please?"

"Sorry," he's sincere and it's surprising, "writer's habit, we can talk about something else."

"You just poured steaming hot water over my hand, what makes you think I want to talk to you?"

"First of all, technically you poured that over your hand yourself, and secondly you already are talking to me."

She rolls her eyes and tries to push away the irritation at the smile tearing at the corners of her mouth.

"So what do you want to talk about then?" She sighs in defeat.

"I asked you first."

Is he actually five years old?

"Okay," he appeases and seems to consider her for a second, "if you could be any super hero in the world, who would you be?"

His conversational skills are more than questionable, but soon enough she finds herself stuck in a conversation with Richard Castle surrounding super powers and heroes and for the first time in months she has a conversation in which the word "alcohol" doesn't appear even once.

* * *

**AN: **I did not originally plan on ever uploading this. This story is super personal for me and has been written whenever I was at the lowest point. It was initially only for myself but my best friend has convinced me to upload this in despite of it. A lot of this story is already written although it is still a complete mess and needs a lot of work but somehow I can't seem to really let this one go. I don't know whether anyone will be interested in joining me on this little journey and whether this story is likeable or not, but it is very important to me and I hope you can find something within this.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking is still the hardest part. There are nights filled with nightmares and pictures of dread, where she wakes to a world that is not better. And there are nights filled with dreams that show her the life she could have led, the person she could have been and she wakes up to all that she is, and more importantly to all that she is not, and the world is still hollow and it hurts.

She wishes to shower with hydrogen peroxide in the mornings sometimes, hoping that maybe it would bleach away the scars and leave her stripped of the pain. And sometimes she hopes she'll just disappear if she curls into herself tightly enough.

She stares at the ceiling for a couple seconds, taking measured breaths that don't reach their whole weight until she can sit up, lift both feet out of bed and onto the cold floor to get up, jaw straight and a firm hold onto her heart.

* * *

The session passes by swiftly and the words hit her as softly as the rain and afterwards she is not sure how time still moves when it doesn't even affect her anymore.

She gets up from the hard seat of her chair, eyes and mind set on the door, a quick exit, every muscle screaming, "flight."

"Kate," she hears someone calling for her and she is astounded that it still carries through to the outer edges of her awareness.

It's him. Of course it's him.

She half turns to him, not sure whether to make a run for the door or accept her fate and stay, and looks at him.

"I know we didn't really start off good last week, with the tea and all, but hey it can only get better right?" He shrugs adorably but she thinks that he knows nothing. It can always get worse. And when there is rock bottom then there is still a whole abyss underneath that and maybe it just never ends but she doesn't want to tell him about falling and never reaching the ground and so she just offers him a tight smile and moves over to the table.

He offers her an already poured cup of tea and she accepts it.

"So how was your week?" He asks.

"Splendid," she doesn't particularly like the strain on her voice or the snippy edge to it but she can't prevent it anymore.

He furrows his brow as he looks at her and she softens her voice as she goes on, "why don't you tell me?"

He nods for a while, eyes set on hers, "touché."

She smiles a little and lifts the cup to her mouth. The tea smells like fruit and roses and like candles her mother used to light in the bathroom and for a second she loses her breath.

"Why don't we agree to never speak about these things?" He tears her away from whatever was taking hold and she manages the flutter of a smile, the soft curl of a lip; a cursive line saying much more than her words ever could.

"Because we're talking so much," her voice is still breathy but holds a playful tone now.

"We will." He says with absolute conviction.

"Right, I don't see it," she purses her lips and her eyebrows raise and she almost feels like Detective Beckett again, teasing Esposito for his oh so subtle crush on Lanie.

"Oh you will," he wiggles his eyebrows, "so what are we going to talk about?" He asks then.

She just rolls her eyes and shakes her head but he seems unfazed and just grins.

"Okay, Doctor Who it is."

* * *

She finds a new kind of normal in these sessions. It's weird. She expected therapy to make her feel abnormal, pathetic even, but she finds she actually looks forward to the sessions now. It's not that she can actually bring up the courage to speak. It's not even that she finds solace in other people's stories, in the fact that there are others sharing at least a tiny fragment of her pain. No, it's mostly the routine, and the fact that she has somewhere to go and something to do.

And on nights when she is lying awake and her mind is brutally honest she accepts the tiny part of herself that tells her that he is part of her normal too. He and his ridiculous stories of time travel and bow ties and what even else. He and his ways of making her feel not quite so alone in her mind all the time.

* * *

She usually wanders through New York for hours after the sessions. Sometimes he manages to sneak up next to her and join her and she pretends to be annoyed. A necessary charade. She doesn't exactly know why though.

And some days she wanders off alone, through the streets, passing people she'll never know. She has started to dread the sound of her closing door. The inevitable prison of her apartment, where the ghosts are alive and she hates that she can't manage to just make them go away.

She hates that she has trapped herself within the physical confines of her body and that she can't just shed all these layers to become whole again.

* * *

It's almost the end of the sixth month when Dr. George brings it up. She asked him a while back whether she'd be cleared to go back to duty any time soon to which he replied, "I think you still have some work here." She hadn't asked again.

It's at the end of the session and Norman has just finished talking about fearing a relapse. He asks whether they know how to deal with it and oh god, she wishes she did. She wishes she could give him some kind of solid advice but every word would be hypocrisy because some days she still feels it overwhelming her as well. She usually steps under a cold shower and lets the ice pricks pelt onto her skin until every corner of her is numb. Sometimes she goes for a run or does push-ups until her heart is the only sound in her mind and the only thing she longs for is air. But sometimes she still lies awake at night, and everything is just too much, too little and the sobs that shred her stomach have her aching and longing for just one sip to make the noises stop. Everything

just stop.

She's surprised to find Castle speaking up then. He is the only one except for her, who still hasn't shared his story and considering that he is a bestselling novelist, who tells stories for a living she is kind of surprised.

"I surround myself with people, who care whether I have a relapse or not, people I love."

Well what if you don't have those people?

Norman seems to have the same question and for a while they discuss methods to avoid succumbing to alcohol and numbing the pain.

The clock strikes the full hour but instead of asking what they took from this session as he usually does, Dr. George pulls out a piece of paper from the bag under his chair.

"Seeing as we have been meeting up here for almost two months now, some changes are in order." She is still impressed at how deep a voice can actually reach. "I have observed different stages of improvement, as far as I can even evaluate this," he takes a small break to smile at every one of them, which would be annoying if he wasn't looking so sincere. "And seeing as some of us have found it more easy to share than others I wanted to try another approach that has proven to be quite effective in previous groups as well."

She doesn't like this. She is sure she is not going to like this.

"Don't get me wrong, this is not at all mandatory. Just like you being here is not at all an obligation you have to meet. I just think some of you could really benefit from this."

"I will separate you into groups of two that will meet for one additional hour each week. You can schedule this hour at any time you want and talk about anything you want, whether it's the reason you are here or cooking tips," he glances at Anna and she blushes a little. "Depending on how well this works out we can switch partners after a couple of weeks. Maybe one or the other will be able to open up better when only speaking to one person instead of the whole group."

"How will we pick our partner?" A woman she is pretty sure is called Caroline asks.

"I have made a list of people I thought seemed to fit. We will try in this constellation and see whether it works out."

Everybody nods in silent agreement and so Dr. George proceeds to explain how this could strengthen their bonds and give them an individual person to talk to, someone who will understand.

That's where he is wrong though. No one will understand her pain. Each pain is so different. Each pain is felt differently, dealt with differently and she doubts that she will find someone, who will understand the depth of her fears or the self-loathing. She doubts she'll find to someone, who will tell her, "yes of course I know what it feels like when you just want to shred your skin and tear it apart, to finally, finally escape." She doubts she'll find someone, who will know what it feels like to think, "I don't want to be this, but this is all I am", every single day until the thoughts seem to set fire to her paper body. She knows this won't work. She knows no one will be able to make it better. People aren't meant to fix people.

She startles out of her thoughts when Dr. George starts reading the names.

"Katherine Beckett and," she already knows before he speaks the second name, "Richard Castle."

Their eyes meet across the circle and his seem to hold as much apology as relief and she finds that she herself is something akin to grateful that it's him. Not that it matters.

* * *

They both head straight for the door with a symmetry to their movement that neither one of them notices. They stroll down to the exit in silence, neither one of them sure on how to address this and so they eventually end up standing on the pavement rather awkwardly.

"So are we going to do this?" He caves first and breaks the silence. He moves right to left with his feet, small steps and shifting hands and there is a kind of vulnerability in his eyes and a softness to his words that makes her chest clench uncomfortably. This matters to him.

"I don't know," she shrugs, "although I guess it would give us some bonus points with Dr. George if he knew that we at least do this part of therapy right."

He smiles a little at that and nods, "Okay so when?"

"Friday?" She asks, "do you know Remy's?"

He smiles at that with an excitement that would be fitting had she told him they'd meet on the moon for this. But she finds herself involuntarily smiling back at him.

"It's a date." He is overly eager and she just shakes her head, eyes rolling. A trade mark move when it comes to interactions with him it seems.

"Five pm alright with you?" She asks and he nods.

"So I'll see you there," she says and turns around on her heels to make her way back home.

"Until Friday, Kate," she hears him calling after her and she smiles although there is no one to see it.

* * *

**AN:** I'd like to thank every single person that left a review or words of encouragement on other pages. I was so nervous about this one (still am tbh) but everyone was so kind and supportive and it really means a lot to me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :*


	3. Chapter 3

It's Thursday and she falls asleep around midnight with re-runs of Temptation Lane on the TV and silence clinging to her sleeves. The strings of her couch bore into her back but it doesn't matter. She's tired but she knows sleep will do nothing to take away the exhaustion that tears at her insides and eats her alive.

"Please," she's been reduced to these whispers, silent prayers at the dome of her mouth and they do nothing.

She used to believe in god. She's not so sure now. All she knows is that if there is one, he doesn't believe in her.

She's so tired of praying with no one to hear. And so she just waits for the night to tiptoe away.

* * *

She wakes up at 5am and it's raining. When she was a child her mother told her that storms were, "the angels in heaven tipping out their bath tubs."

Now they're just comfort.

She gets up, blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a shield and moves over to the window sill where she is closer to the rivers of rain. They hit her window as if they were trying to get inside to find some kind of warmth. They won't find it here.

She thinks about those months up in the cabin and how her father told her over and over, "the sky is allowed to break apart and so are you."

She thinks about all those tears she shed inside the bathroom, shower running and cherry shampoo filling the air.

Alone.

* * *

She doesn't go back to sleep. It's too loud and whenever the storm knocks at her walls she flinches away.

There's no one coming for you.

You're safe.

She clings to her chest, willing to rip out that stupid heart of hers that is beating so hard she can feel it in her ears and mouth, its drums battling the storm outside.

She used to be better than this.

She used to be better than pulling a blanket on top of her.

She used to be better than curling into herself, arms reaching around her legs to pull them close, making herself as small as possible.

She used to be better than wondering whether she'll be able to fold herself into strength like paper cranes.

* * *

It's 3pm and she thinks about the times she didn't have to use two hours to prepare herself for human interaction.

She looks at her reflection in the mirror. It's just glass and she thinks that with one flick of the wrist she could break it apart into tiny fragments.

She'd break apart just as easily.

It's just glass.

She removes the thick NYPD sweater she's wearing. It's used and light with the washing detergent and for a while she stares at the skin it exposes. Even though the light is dim, the circular white skin in the valley of her breasts still beams brightly and she thinks that it could set the world on fire. Her index finger traces the edges of puckered skin that still manages to haunt her dreams.

She hates that it doesn't fade.

She hates that this man managed to tattoo her with misery.

Her eyes find hers in the reflection. The soft skin under her eyes is dark and deep and she doesn't remember the last time when it wasn't.

She narrows her eyes at herself, leans in closer. Her fingers are still grasping at her chest, eyes desperately seeking out something familiar. Something screaming, "Here I am, please find me."

She reaches for the eyeliner and starts applying it like war paint.

The lines come out uneven and only draw more attention to the darkness underneath her eyes.

She knows it will take a while to piece herself back together.

She thinks about cancelling on him more than twice. But whenever she reaches for her phone she thinks about his eyes.

She thinks about the hope shining in them. She thinks about the mischief and the smiles and she thinks about the sadness somewhere deeper, well hidden by a carefully constructed mask.

And so she leaves her apartment at 4:40, keys firmly clasped by her fingers and even though the steps resonate through her entire frame she manages to hold herself and keep on going.

* * *

He's already inside when she arrives at 5pm sharp. He took one of the tables right next to a window. She thinks about broken glass and rushed voices, ambulances and a lifeless body next to the table. She isn't happy about his choice but slides into the boot across from him anyway.

No one is coming for you.

You're okay.

She leaves her jacket on and the purple scarf wrapped firmly around her neck and she manages to offer him a small smile as she says, "Hi."

"Hey," he says and smiles back rather awkwardly.

After seconds of just staring at the other, trying to come up with something useful to say, she finally reaches over for the menu, even though she already knows it by heart, to study it as if it was the most interesting thing she's ever seen in her entire life.

In her peripheral vision she sees him wringing his hands and straightening the already straight table cloth.

"So," she hears him eventually and her eyes find his across the table, "how are we supposed to do this?"

"I'm not sure."

There is silence again and some kind of sickness has taken hold of her throat again.

She's not good at this. What do you talk about on a meeting that was suggested by a mutual therapist to get them to heal, because they were already bad at speaking in the group? What was Dr. George thinking, pairing them up together?

She can't speak about the weather when they are only here because neither one of them really knew how to handle life. What is she doing here?

"Have you seen Doctor Who this weekend?" His question is so absurd that for a second her mind is too confused to make her feel like crap and a breathy laugh escapes from her lips. The sound is strange to her ears, like an unheard remnant of another life and it startles her for a second.

"I can't say that I have." She shakes her head and the words are breathy, as if carried on a laugh, and she thinks that she likes the taste of them on her lips.

"What's wrong with you?" He looks seriously disgruntled and she rolls her eyes. "Okay but how much do you know about it?"

"I don't really know much about it, only that the main character is the Doctor or something."

"I can see how you made Detective," he nods earnestly and she almost smiles again.

"Aside from that I really don't know anything."

"But how?" He asks and at her raising eyebrows adds, "I've been talking about it so much."

"You must have not been doing a very good job at that then"

His jaw drops and she can already tell she's made a mistake because for the next thirty minutes he keeps on ranting about the show and shipping and after every sentence he adds an "isn't that amazing?"

She nods at his remarks, still trying to keep up the mask of indifference, but finds herself actually enjoying listening to his exuberant stories while sipping the peppermint tea the waitress has brought for her.

He does change the topic eventually and for a good while they talk about mindless things that still seem to weigh much more than they would have to.

It's 7pm when they are standing on the sidewalk, ready to part ways.

Her teeth are worrying her bottom lip as she looks up at him with an uncommon shyness to her eyes.

"So how do we do this?" She asks.

"I don't know," he shrugs and it's not enough. "But for now, maybe we can just be two people, talking about whatever, until we figure it out."

She nods at that.

They'll work it out.

* * *

He asks for her number the next Friday. "Just in case there are any changes."

She rolls her eyes but types it into his phone anyway.

He then proceeds sending her ridiculous pictures of pugs wrapped in costumes or blankets and fanvideos of the Doctor and a woman called River. She tells him she won't watch them because she doesn't care but finds herself googling this show of his one night anyway, and maybe, maybe she'll give it a shot one day.

* * *

Doctor George asks her whether the one-on-one is helping, whether she thinks that partnering them up has been a good choice for her individual case.

"Yes."

She tells herself it's because that's what he wants to hear.

But she can't find the lie. And for once a word slips past her lips with ease.

* * *

"I read a book about a zombie apocalypse last night," Castle tells her, pouring sugar into his coffee like there's no tomorrow and blood glucose levels are a myth.

"Why am I not surprised?" She smiles and sometimes it still takes her aback at how easy it is. She remembers the first smile, a foreign concept on her lips, she remembers the stretch and the way it seemed too painful to be good.

She getting used to the weight of it again.

"You mock me now but when it's happening you'll still come running."

"You do realize that I was a cop, I can protect myself."

"We can protect each other," the smirk and wiggle of his eyebrows takes the weight off the words and she is glad.

"How do I know you won't sell me to the zombies at any opportunity given?"

"Come on Kate, we'll be partners, like Starsky and Hutch or Tango and Cash or," he seems to ponder on this for a second, "Turner and Hooch."

"Yeah, you do remind me a little of Hooch," she feels her lips curling up into a lopsided grin at the way his eyes widen comically before he cocks his head and smiles.

"I'll take it."

* * *

"You know I was friends with a conspiracy theorist once," he tells her and she finds herself smiling into her fries.

She likes that habit of his, where he just starts a conversation about the most random topic he can think of. There are nights when he sends her messages going, "do you think a place selling only products made out of potatoes would be successful?"

"Yeah?" She asks. But she knows he'll elaborate anyway.

"Yeah, he told me all about an alien base under the ice of Antarctica."

"You believe that don't you?" She pops another fry into her mouth.

"No, but how cool would it be?" His voice is gliding into frequencies that should not be humanly possible and she laughs. Clear and honest.

It doesn't surprise her so much anymore. She doesn't flinch away from the sound. And her heart still hasn't collapsed with it.

* * *

"You make a very cute couple," an elderly woman beams at them. She is wearing a knit, pink sweater and a bright smile as she nudges the man standing next to her and holding her hand.

"Don't they Arthur?"

He nods and looks at them, slightly embarrassed.

When they leave neither one of them has corrected them.

* * *

It's Thursday and she finds herself staring at the ceiling. The alarm clock on the nightstand next to her draws the red numbers 3:23 into the darkness and her fingers grasp the blanket so tightly she knows her knuckles are white as paper.

She doesn't know why exactly it is that her heart has become an ellipsis.

She looks over to where she knows her phone is. She didn't plug it in tonight.

She feels the words, "See you tomorrow" still burning holes into her retina. She still feels the small flutter in her chest that dared to be hopeful that there was one tiny thing to look forward to.

She doesn't even like him.

And even if she did.

She's not good with people.

She's not good at this whole being alive thing.

She knows how to be alone.

And she knows how to prevent herself from hurting.

She knows that with hope comes pain.

She knows destruction. She knows how to live despite the wreckage.

And finally she understands why they called the hurricane that destroyed so many _"Kate"._

* * *

**AN: **This chapter is such a mess idek. Thank you so much for sticking with me though and thank you for your kind words.


	4. Chapter 4

She wakes up four hours later, her phone at 2% and she thinks that the word "pain" has as many syllables as each beat of her heart.

She hates that someone caring about her makes her feel sick.

Her mother used to tell her that one day she'll meet a great guy, who will show her the stars and make her feel everything all at once. She told her about how frightening it is, because love was like that moment when you leap of the edge, but you're not scared because you know the fall will be gentle.

But love for her, has always meant destruction.

It meant that her body was too much glass and too little flesh and that there was no fall or leap and no good smiles, just pain and a tightness in the stomach she can't seem to unfurl.

She thinks about the time with Sorenson and the fact that he made her smile sometimes. She thinks about the guys at the precinct and Lanie that told her to stop killing herself.

She didn't tell them much about those months she spent on the kitchen floor, but the lines on her skin did and she can't forget their eyes.

Castle won't be different.

People leave bruises too often and too little strength.

And not even the smiles can erase the scars.

Her fingers find her phone and select his contact. He took a selfie as a contact picture and it essentially consists of him grinning over the lenses at her sitting across from him.

The screen goes black again and her fingers fail and let it drop.

She watches the device rest accusingly on the floor and directs her trembling fingers to trace the white scar lines at the curve of her hips and thighs to eventually travel up to the round silhouette between her breasts.

She wonders when she has allowed scar tissue to define her. She wonders when she started turning her soft edges into battle grounds. And when she looks at herself in her mirror, all mismatched heart and eyes like porcelain she thinks that maybe he won't be different.

Maybe he will be like all the other people that dropped another ounce of weight onto her shoulders. Maybe this will be what makes her crumble. Not even Atlas could shoulder more than the world.

But maybe he is just a good guy, with a good smile and eyes that hold forgiveness.

* * *

Maybe she should have cancelled after all. Her fingers are grasping each other, nails digging crescent half-moons into the soft parts of her skin and she thinks that sometimes she'd like to flee from herself.

He watches her over the rim of his coffee cup. His eyes seek out hers and every time they meet she flinches away from the understanding she finds in them.

He isn't supposed to see all that hurts.

He seems to consider her for a while longer, eyes cutting deeper than skin.

It's relatively silent. There aren't any other customers currently present at the small diner. A waitress is playing a game on her iPhone and the background melodies carry over to them on an almost inaudible beat. The sun looks almost fluid in the air, a sea with small dust fragments dancing on the waves. His eyes match the sight and her nails cut deeper.

"When I was a child my mother used to sing to me," he says then, voice dotted with a kind of heaviness she can't seem to understand.

"And not just like any mother, no she was all actress and dramatically reenacted musical numbers when I was feeling down until I started to smile."

He breathes and it sounds like gravel and stone and too much grey in comparison to the matt rose of his lips.

"I asked her to start doing it again because I couldn't pick myself up alone," he adds and she thinks that if words could break people it would be those.

"She sounds lovely," she replies, voice heavy with all that she is trying to say but doesn't have the words for. He seems to understand anyway.

"Yeah she is." He confirms and she is glad that his voice has lost some of its edge.

He smiles at her, this smile that is just lips and little eyes and the word melancholy.

"Why are you telling me this?" She asks.

"A truth for a truth?" It's not a demand, there are no expectations and his eyes are just blue when they settle on her hands that have released some of their strain.

She nods a little, hair falling into her face, hiding her behind a curtain of fluid amber. She breathes in and out, tightens her jaw and lets her voice soar up.

"When I was little the dark scared me."

She waits a couple of seconds and tries to comprehend why she has decided to share this.

"And now?" He asks silently enough to give her the opportunity of pretending she hasn't heard.

She did hear however. And she doesn't know where the words come from when they spill over her chapped lips.

"I learned that there are worse things than the dark and equally there are none, so I'm not so sure."

He nods and for the flick of a second their eyes meet and she knows that he understands.

"Alexis broke her arm once in elementary school and I don't think I've ever been so afraid in my life before. I ran five red lights on the way to the hospital. I probably could've ended up there myself, considering my driving style, but I didn't care I just needed to get to her."

"You two are very close aren't you?" She knows the answer from the frequent occasions in which she has witnessed his eyes lighting up when he was talking about his daughter.

"Yeah we are, even-" his words seem to get caught in his throat, "well even still."

She knows better than to ask. She doesn't have to. She knows the look in his eyes.

They both went through the same thing, and she knows what it does to your relationships.

"I met my best friend from high school on the streets last week and she hugged me and told me she missed me and the only thing I could say was, me too," she turns her tea cup in her hands, "but I didn't mean her, I meant that I miss myself."

"I haven't written in two years now, and sometimes I worry that words have left me for good."

"I was a cop since I was nineteen, and I haven't been on duty for the past year and sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night when I hear a siren and I think that it's time to go."

* * *

He turns it into a game and she isn't surprised. He calls it "truth" and as she tells him that it isn't the most original title he comes up with titles that vary in degree of ridiculousness and so she finally agrees that "truth" seems to be the best one.

He also enlists two cardinal rules.

No questions are allowed.

The truths of the respective other have to be kept secret and are not to be shared with anyone else.

She's surprised at the ease with which they fall into this new routine and she is most definitely surprised at how easy it is to talk to him.

There is something reckless about telling the absolute truth and something almost destructive at the way she glances up at his eyes.

* * *

"I've actually never seen the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy because I always fell asleep half way through."

"I was a Sci-fi geek and dressed up as my favorite character to go to Comic Cons and all."

She watches his eyes widening at this new piece of information and almost laughs.

"What is your favorite show?" His voice is slightly high-pitched and his eye brows have risen to a point that should be humanly impossible.

"I thought no questions are allowed," she smirks.

"Please," he pouts and widens his eyes even more for maximum puppy-eye-effect and she concedes.

"Nebula 9."

His eyes stay wide but they manage to change expression from thoroughly excited to deeply distressed.

"Hey you don't get to ask questions and then judge me for their answer you know," her voice is playful but he must hear the small edge to the lightness that tells him how much this truly matters to her.

"Sorry, it's just not- well not my thing, but I guess it's important to you and so it doesn't matter what I think."

He shuffles around with his hands for a bit, as if he was physically trying to take back the negativity.

"You can ask a question too so we're even," he offers.

"I don't-"

"No you really can, I promise I will answer honestly."

She knows she should ask something light. They have been hiding in lightness for the past few sessions and the sun is drawing light silhouettes on the soft parts of his skin and she knows she shouldn't break the tranquility but the words seem to climb up the rugs of her ribs, each one clawing at her, willing her to finally ask the only thing that seems to matter.

"Do you think it will ever stop being this hard?"

She feels her teeth cutting into the soft flesh of her lip immediately after the words stumble free and she watches his eyes turning raw with a glimpse of sadness, a snap shot of despair.

"I don't know," he says "I don't think so. But maybe at one point we'll learn how to carry it. Maybe one day we can understand the weight and won't feel it weighing us down anymore. Maybe one day it won't limit us anymore," he shrugs and for a while they sit in silence, trying to measure the weight of the word _maybe._

"So about Nebula 9 though," she almost laughs because he does have a gift for rapid changes of conversation.

"I thought there was no judgment."

"Oh there isn't just, let's call it curiosity," she shakes her head but smiles in despite of it "did it never bother you that they literally fly through time and space and into black holes and all that and no one ever thought to mention that the effect the space-time-continuum would have on their journey?"

"I am sorry that I didn't watch it for the purpose of being scientifically educated but solely for entertainment. It's not like Star Trek is super realistic."

His mouth opens and closes a couple of times in silent disbelief.

"You did not just insult Star Trek."

* * *

She listens to the rain against the window. For once she reached the diner before him, but even now it's only because she had to practically flee from the oncoming storm.

The rain reaches the asphalt in a kind of mismatched symphony and the light of the sun is caught in every single drop as they fall softly. She thinks that she understands how Chopin wrote a whole prelude about the rain and she wonders what he would think about her heart.

Maybe he would write her down as a raging pianissimo.

He arrives five minutes later, jacket soaked and even his hair dripping with water. He sort of shakes his head and manages to look like a little puppy reaching shore after swimming in the sea. When he grins at her with blue eyes and hair stuck to his forehead she thinks that as kids she and her best friend tried to find each other's spirit dog and that his would be a golden retriever.

She tells him about the time she worked a child kidnapping case and that it didn't end well. She tells him that it is one of the cases that never let her go, but has simultaneously made her a better cop. Not that it matters anymore.

His eyes go dark at the story. Like the blue is replaced by steel and she watches him swallow a couple of times around some invisible weight that must have settled on his throat.

"Are you okay?" She asks him and he just nods, eyes painfully focused on the checked tablecloth.

She wonders what has happened to him.

But she knows the rules and doesn't ask.

Instead she manages to turn the conversation to lighter things again. Safety zones.

She watches his eyes clear up again, climbing up the spectrum until they reach cerulean and his lips curl up into a smile.

She sighs and feels her shoulders relax and once again she doesn't understand how he affects her in this way.

"You know I can't believe you still haven't watched Doctor Who," he says then.

"I'm sorry, I just have better things to do," it's a blatant lie to be honest.

"That's no excuse, and you know what?" He asks and she meets his eyes that are now gleaming with the overly eager excitement of a child.

"We should have a movie night."

"When?"

"Tonight," she has to swallow. She isn't good with social interactions. And she is definitely not good with spontaneous ones. "It'll be fun, come on. Alexis and mother are out most of the night, so you don't have to worry about that."

"It's only 3pm," she croaks.

"It's an advanced movie night, starts early, lasts longer," she swallows again but when she meets his eyes, ready to fumble around with a made up excuse, she finds a small drop behind the sea of honest excitement, an ounce of rain that asks for company to keep the steel at bay.

And so she says yes.

* * *

AN: I am torn between crying and laughing because this is so terrible.

Thank you to everyone, who has reviewed or left words of encouragement elsewhere though. It means a lot to me to hear that you like this little story and it makes me smile a lot 3


	5. Chapter 5

In hindsight, his apartment is probably exactly how she would have imagined it, had she given it some more thought. It's spacey and well-furnished and with just the hint of décor that reminds her that there is also a woman living with him.

She shrugs off her jacket and hands it to his awaiting arms before she inhales deeply and lets her eyes wander across his huge book front. Everything will be okay. Exhale.

"So Alexis and Martha are out for the entire night?" she asks, for what has to be the fifth time. She's not sure whether she seeks the reassurance that they are out and that she will not have to face them today, or whether she wants him to tell her that they'll be back by noon, giving her an excuse to leave.

"Yeah, Alexis has decided that she has to seize her time in New York to go to Broadway as often as possible and they decided to make day out of it," he laughs lightly and wanders off towards the kitchen.

"I see," she says on a nervous smile and her fingers pull the sleeves of her sweater up so they cover up her entire palm as she stays in the doorway.

"How does she like Stanford though?" she asks.

"Oh she loves it, she's taking about a million extra courses and I'm pretty sure she's crushing hard on one of her class mates." He starts the popcorn machine and she has to step closer if she wants to uphold the conversation over the sound of the corn flying around and bursting open.

"Yeah, I loved it too." She leans against the counter, fingers grasping at the edge as she watches her knuckles go white.

"You went to Stanford?" he asks, eyes tearing away from the popcorn and up to meet hers.

"Yeah, I was pre-law." She breaks her hand free from the counter to let her fingers brush through her hair, slides them along her neck until eventually they land on the counter again.

"Oh," she hears him say but he doesn't ask further and she feels some of the strain being released from her dangerously paper-white knuckles.

"How long is she here for?"

"Three weeks." He puts a ridiculous amount of sugar and butter over the bowl of popcorn and she starts feeling slightly queasy at the sight.

"She's young to go to university isn't she?" she's not sure whether she's overstepping, she's pretty sure she is, but the question falls from her lips before she can reconsider it.

"Yeah, she had enough school credits to graduate early and get accepted into Stanford." He turns to the machine again.

"Oh, I see." Most of all she sees the stains of sadness that have encroached on him, but she doesn't really know what to do about them.

And so she stays silent and watches the popcorn instead, pretending for one second that the glucose levels of this snack are her biggest issue.

* * *

"Make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back," he gestures to the couch in the middle of the room and disappears upstairs.

She frowns at the piece of furniture for a moment and starts an intense staring contest with the object before she finally decides that she has been in near-death situations before and that she should therefore be able to handle an evening on the couch with a friend.

She remembers the time Lanie came by right after she had left the precinct though. And the way she had flinched and grabbed for her, already confiscated, gun when their knees had brushed.

She can do this though.

She can do this.

He gets back down just as she is getting seated. He's carrying two thick blankets and stops in front of her to hand her the purple one.

"So," he says as he plummets down on the couch, "there are several ways to go about this." He looks over at her as if he was about to show her the world and she can't help the small smile tucking at the corners of her mouth.

He's sitting so that there is enough room to fit both of their popcorn bowls between them and she feels herself sagging against the cushioned back.

"We can start with the first Doctor," he loses her at that when he starts listing pros and cons of starting with the first or ninth Doctor before he finally decides to introduce her to the show with an episode called "Rose".

* * *

He starts switching between the episodes because, "I know you won't watch it alone and I want you to get a good overview." He's right about her not watching it alone but it doesn't really help her understanding of the story either.

"Castle, I have no idea what's going on anymore," she says at one point and he just grins at her.

"It wouldn't be a good episode of Doctor Who if you did."

* * *

He decides that it isn't a movie night without pizza and selects one of the many (really freaking many) brochures from pizza shops all around town.

"Are you staying for dinner?" he asks and she knows that this could be her chance. She could say that she has other plans, and she knows that he'd let it go. But he looks so hopeful and they are both wrapped in blankets and so she says, "yes, but we should have Chinese," instead.

* * *

"Oh wow, I had a suspect once, looking exactly like this," she mumbles at the screen, just as some sort of a not quite human creature goes on sucking people inside of his body.

"That bad?"

"Oh trust me it was worse."

"Maybe he was an alien," he suggests helpfully.

"You know, I think that if you had been with me, the alien theory would have been a popular one, considering the suspects I've interrogated."

"It sounds awesome," he says before they both turn back around to face the screen at the sound of the Tardis arriving somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

"So what do you watch for fun then?" he asks, shoveling another chopstick full of chow mein into his mouth. "Except for the glorious show Nebula 9 of course."

She shakes her head a little but he just grins and keeps on eating.

She doesn't want to say Temptation Lane. He'd never let her live that down.

And also he'd probably ask why.

"Baseball," she says instead.

"Oh I didn't know you were a fan."

"The things you don't know about me could fill a book, Castle."

He looks at her for a second, noodles hanging from his chopsticks in front of his face as he nods.

"Yeah, they could very well do that."

* * *

"If you could go back to any place in time, where would you go?" he asks when it's close to 11pm.

She thinks about her mother for a moment, about brown hair and hugs that smelled like vanilla sticks.

"I don't know," she says instead.

* * *

It's midnight and the fluttering of her eyes is almost too easy.

She knows she should get up and leave. Preferably now.

But she's warm. And she's not alone and for once she can bear it. And so she allows herself to sink back further and her eyes slip shut.

* * *

She startles awake at the sound of the door being shut gently. It's the softest of sounds, swirling through the air like dust and still she feels her heart climbing into her throat, drumming against the back of her mouth as if it was trying to choke her.

She manages to stay down, pulls the blanket on top of her head so that the warmth clings to her and clambers underneath her skin until she feels like she is suffocating.

There is someone inside the loft.

She knows, logically, that it is them. Alexis and his mother. She hears their whispered goodnights and the softness of their sock-clad feet on the stairs as they disappear into their rooms on the floor above.

She presses the knuckles of her hands against her mouth, bites down on them until she tastes metal and eventually moves them up to press against her eyes until it is too much.

Someone is in the loft.

Shot.

Her body jerks away from her as if she was physically trying to get away from herself and the blanket tangles at her feet and the edge of the couch is so close and she knows that she has to get the fuck out of here.

She doesn't know how she manages.

She focuses on breathing quietly. Like normal people do. In and out. Rhythmic. Flat.

She won't be able to keep this up.

She hurries to the door. She isn't wearing her shoes anymore but she doesn't notice. The cold of the floor is comfortable, seeps underneath the soles of her feet in a way that's soothing and she prays for the coolness to reach her heart, so it will stop beating in a way that she's sure is going to destroy her other organs.

It's everywhere.

It's too bright and the door is too far away and is she even moving at all?

In and out. Just breathe.

A strangled breath escapes her lips, hoarse and dry and like she was resurfacing from a cool river and gasping for air before the next wave hits her.

She manages to get outside before she sinks.

Her knees buckle about half way through the floor. Her back connects with the wall behind her, the slopes of her spine crack like earth during an earthquake and she drowns on air until she is sitting on the floor. Her legs are pulled close to her chest, even her kneecaps are vibrating with her heart and straining to get away from the short cadenced, staccato breaths that hit them.

She opens her mouth and she wants to scream, but she's never been really good at letting her voice soar and so she just presses her hands in front of her mouth so that they trap every ounce of air and screams against the soft patches of her callused fingers until she doesn't have a single breath left in her mouth.

She stares at her fingers then, at the shipwreck they hold, at the tremors cursing through them like they are trying to mimic her heart in its erratic beating. Like maybe if her whole body was in on the collapse of her heart she'd just become debris and dust and not the breaking.

She just wants to be done breaking.

* * *

The light greeting her in the elevator is almost punishingly white and when she turns to look at herself in the mirror she finds nothing but haunted eyes and paper skin that is illuminated in all the wrong ways. Her cheek bones are too prominent and her hair is too soft and tells too many stories of sleep and a warm body next to hers.

She clicks the button for the ground floor and watches as the doors close shut. She tries to breathe in a way that is effective, but all the methods she has been told to use by therapists are useless.

You don't magically start breathing right by counting to a certain number and holding your breath to the count of four. She wishes sometimes there was an actual guidebook to this, like for Ikea shelves and origami.

But there isn't.

And so she is just left standing in a too bright elevator with tiny lights announcing each floor. Breathing into her hands, being pretty sure that she is healing in all the wrong ways.

* * *

She considers not going. It's Wednesday morning and she spent the majority of it hanging from her chin-up bar, lifting herself up and letting herself down.

She tells herself that if she is busy she might forget and that it would be a good reason.

But she keeps glancing at the clock.

She keeps staring at her phone, dead, on the nightstand.

She puts on a crème colored coat. And she leaves without looking back.

She's learned how to make herself tall. She had to learn when she walked into interrogation for the first time and learned that women are not treated with the same respect as men, even if they are cops. And so she had learned how to get that respect. She thinks about Castle's mother, the actress. And she thinks that she would be incredibly proud of her performance.

Because right now, she is Detective Kate Beckett and she carries her weight without a tremble in her hands.

She hesitates for a split second before she opens the door to the group.

Most of them are already there. She usually arrives on the spot.

She doesn't look for him.

But he's there and he's already looking at her.

She can't really figure it out when she sits down on her usual chair, the one opposing the window front. His eyes still hold hers and they are-

They are just blue. They are, if such a thing is possible, the word _okay._

It's okay.

You're okay.

They speak of no judgement and that is something she truly doesn't know how to work out.

Usually people always have some incredible advice that does nothing except for telling her that life is easy and she still isn't able to work it out.

But he is just sitting there, giving her a small half-wave that tells her that things are okay the way they are.

* * *

"So Kate, do you have anything you would like to share today?" Dr. George asks.

She feels the familiar words form, tastes the weight of them on her lips but says, "I had a panic attack last week."

She knows people are looking at her. She knows he is looking at her too, eyes wide, surprised.

She doesn't talk.

"What triggered it?" the therapist asks.

She shrugs and presses her lips closed. Her chest aches with words and her head starts spinning.

"Okay," Dr. George says then, "is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"No," she shakes her head.

"Okay," he says again.

Okay.

* * *

**AN: **I am so sorry it took me ages to update this. I had A-levels and they seriously took all of my time and I couldn't find it in me to work this out properly. They are over now though so I should be back on track with this. Thank you to everyone who stuck with me until now, and thank you to all of those who left me kind words in reviews, etc. You are all gold stars!

Also thank you to Alex for reading through this for me, ily sweetheart:*

(also I changed my pen name yes yes)


	6. Chapter 6

"I once broke my ankle when I was dancing on a bar. My mother wanted to ground me for life when I came home," she says, grinning at his indignant look.

They sit in what has soon become _their _booth and Karen (as she has learned is the name of the waitress) has brought her a cup of tea without having to even ask her order. A window in the back is open and grants a fresh breeze to feather across her skin and for busy cadences of the New York City life to carry inside like a record of nostalgia.

"I got almost trampled to death by a cow on a rooftop," he says in response and now it's her staring at him in quiet disbelief.

"Okay, you win," she says and he chuckles lightly, coffee cup twirling in his hands.

Her eyes lower to her fingers on the checked table cloth then, watch as her nails draw symbols into the fabric, slow and deliberate wavy lines and she feels the smile fade slowly.

She wants to tell him about the almost-phone-call this morning. _Almost_. One more word that could have brought Atlas to his knees.

She knows his eyes are on her, she recognizes their weight now.

"It was my mother," he says and she looks up at him to find his fingers grasping his mug a little more fiercely. "She told me that I needed to get a grip on myself, that I had to pull myself together and fix my problems with alcohol. She told me that she wouldn't let Alexis come home to find me like this. That kind of had me snap out of it. I picked myself up, managed to stop drinking. She was also the one to suggest the Support Group."

She watches his lips, the low cursive lines and the shadows underneath his eyes that she keeps forgetting because of the lightness in blue.

She'd like to hear the whole story. To understand the crinkles and rough patches of his skin but she doesn't ask.

"When they told me not to come to the precinct until I could handle it, the drinking only got worse," she hears herself speaking. "It was horrible being at home, it was too loud and left too much room for my thoughts and I couldn't handle it so I drank," her voice is raspy, like it doesn't want to support her words anymore and she swallows heavily.

"My father had been an alcoholic as well and I tried not to let my own struggle show. It worked, up until that one night where he found me in the middle of my apartment, shivering, drunk and sobbing and I couldn't get up," she swallows again, feels her nails digging into the soft, already harmed flesh of her palms.

"He stayed the whole night and took care of me but in the morning he got angry. Oh god he was so angry," she releases a shuddering breath, "I had been the one to send him to recovery and now I was making the same mistakes, even chose the same poison I used to hate so much." She wonders how much torture her lips can handle before breaking for good.

"He told me to get help and I yelled at him that I didn't need it. I wasn't really sober again then and I called him a hypocrite for even judging. I'll never forget his face," she breathes on a shaky sigh.

"He looked like I might as well have slapped him and I regretted it immediately but he just got very calm and understanding in a way I hated and told me to call him once I was sober again so that we could talk. I didn't. I'm not good at accepting help. I got myself together though. Stopped drinking and started doing more for my physical health. When I wanted to sign back up for duty they told me I had to be cleared by a therapist first and so I joined the support group because it seemed easier at the time. I still haven't called my dad." She glances to the tops of the room, at rotating ventilator blades and wooden ceiling boards, anywhere but his eyes.

"He tried to call a couple times, even came over once but I couldn't open the door."

"Why not?" he's breaking protocol but somehow it's okay.

"I was still ashamed for tumbling down that path, for what I said, for who I became." She furrows her brow, "I still am." She shrugs kind of helplessly and digs her nails deeper into her skin.

"You got yourself out, you should be proud… He'd be proud," he says and she knows his hands are battling a silent war on their own, trying not to reach out for her own clasping fingers to hold them still.

"Well I'm not." Her teeth cut into her lip again, "I don't know what to say to him."

"Why don't you start with hello?"

* * *

It's all wrong. She glares at her reflection in the mirror, at all the mismatched edges, at the jacket that sits too loose and the high heels that make her too tall and sighs before reaching for the phone on the nightstand.

**What do you wear when you're seeing your father again for the first time in weeks after you just had a major fight? **She reconsiders her text for a second before she presses send.

_Clothes? _Comes his reply only seconds later and she rolls her eyes in response before the phone vibrates again.

_Sorry, lame. Don't wear black and go for your trench coat instead of leather. _

**Thanks. **

_No problem and good luck, it will all be okay._

**Thanks.**

It will all be okay.

She ends up in a loosely fitting white blouse and a dark blue scarf and finds that she looks like she has herself pieced neatly together instead of like she is an alluvial wrack on a shore she doesn't recognize. She hopes her father doesn't do that x-ray vision thing her mother had going and she hopes to every star that he won't ask about her heart because she wouldn't know how to describe its facets anymore.

* * *

"I'm glad you called," her father says after they have settled on the living room couch.

"Yeah me too," she smiles that smile that stretches her cheeks in all the wrong ways.

"You look good."

"Thank you," she smiles tightly again and seriously, she has got to stop with that. Maybe if she practices in front of the mirror it won't feel as fake at some point.

"How are you?" he cocks his head at her and she sees the hesitance in his eyes, not sure how many questions he is allowed, not sure how much she can handle.

How is she though?

I'm good, Dad, thanks for asking. Sometimes I choke on my own breath and my knees can't carry my weight. I dream about falling a lot. Loud sounds startle me, light scares me, so does the night and sometimes I flinch away from my own shadow. I kind of want to cut out my heart most of the time so I can restart it and treat it right this time around. Sometimes my palms feel so heavy with the wreckage I pour in their cupped flesh like secrets and I don't really know what to do with all the debris. I'm having a blast you know.

"I'm good," she says instead, nodding her head in affirmation. She doesn't want him to know about the breaking, she needs him to stop looking at her like one of the porcelain swans her mother used to keep in their living room, always about to shatter into pieces.

"You said you're doing therapy?" her father asks then.

"Yeah, I'm in a support group, we meet Wednesdays and I'm seeing one of the guys on Fridays too." She pulls one of the pillows into her lap to tuck at its edges.

"Oh, who is he?"

"His name is Richard." She doesn't want to mention his last name. They'd both glance over to the vast book shelves. They'd both remember her mother telling them about his books. They'd both remember the time when she threw each one of them against the wall on January 10th. They'd both remember the way she hid in her room afterwards, with only his words as a blanket.

"What's he like?"

"Well," she's never been good at casting people into words. "He's good." He'd never speak to her again for this poor character description but she's not a writer and maybe she can start there.

"He's good with words but he didn't speak much during the sessions, which he compensates for by talking abut absolutely everything when we see each other. He loves ridiculous things like zombies and aliens and I don't even know what. He made up this game for us which he calls truth because we didn't really know what to talk about. "

"He sounds nice," her father comments, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah, he's a great friend."

* * *

They get along easily and she is glad that there isn't too much air in between the two of them, and that words can travel further than the lips. She is glad that he smiles at her a lot and she is glad that his eyes are warm again when they look at her.

He doesn't ask about the precinct or her job and she doesn't mention it.

He doesn't ask about the alcohol either, just brings her a cup of tea and smiles this very, very good smile that makes her feel like she is five years old again at the top of a slide, hurling down toward him.

"And well, Richard taught me how to defend myself in case of a zombie apocalypse anyway," she doesn't really know how she ended up talking about zombies with her father but she is sure Castle is to blame for that entirely.

"You smile whenever you talk about him," her father points out and for a second her index finger finds her lips, traces the contours of her smile like a stanza in braille, spelling out a secret she doesn't know yet.

She brings her cup to her lips then to taste sweet peppermint.

* * *

He answers the phone after the first ring and the first thing she hears is a rustled crash that is immediately followed by a breathy, "hi."

"You okay there, Castle?"

"Might have fallen out of bed reaching for the phone," he replies and she smiles as she settles back into her pillows to pull the blanket up higher and around her shoulders.

"How did it go?" he asks next.

"It was fine, I think he forgave me."

"And you?"

"I forgave him a long time ago," she answers, slight irritation laced into her voice.

"No, I meant, do you forgive yourself?" he asks then and the words kind of knock her out.

"Castle," it's a warning and a beg at once and please, please, please don't go there.

"No, Kate, do you forgive yourself?" her fingers grasp at the blanket, pulling it even closer as if that would somehow shield her away from this.

"Yes." Her voice is too loud, too stark against the small device in her hand.

"Truth?" he asks, voice almost painfully quiet.

"No," she hopes it's silent enough to get caught on air and just drift away but of course it isn't. Silent words always seem to be the loudest with them.

"I hope in time you will," his sincerity weaves through the microphone and she feels the familiar sad smile on her lips and the weight of it in her eyes.

"I hope so too," she whispers.

"So what are you doing," he says, the gravel leaving his voice and she can practically see him leaning back, shoulders relaxing as he steers them into lighter conversations.

"Speaking to you," she says.

"And other than that?"

"Lying in bed."

"Is that supposed to be a booty call?" his voice is light and kind of bouncy enough to make her smile for real and she feels herself leaning back again as well.

"In what universe?" she raises her eyebrows and somehow she knows that he can read that action from her tone alone.

"Don't get me started on universes," he laughs.

"Really please don't," she says quickly.

"I'm watching Temptation Lane re-runs," he says then and her heart clenches for a second.

"Oh-"

"Yeah it's kind of calming in its ridiculousness," he laughs.

"My mom and I used to watch it."

"Oh you wanna watch while we speak?"

"Yeah let me just get to the living room, what episode are they airing?" she asks, untangling herself from the bed sheets.

"I don't know I just tuned in, a brunette is yelling."

"You just narrowed it down to every episode ever," she replies, bare feet tiptoeing across the cold floor.

"Well please contribute your insider info then."

"Found it," she exclaims, remote still in her hands as she reaches for the purple blanket at the foot of her couch to cover her cool feet once she settles down.

"So?"

"Season 7, Episode 10."

"You got that from one scene."

"Are you impressed?" she laughs, legs crossing and falling back against her cushions.

"Yes and also kind of worried," she can imagine his dramatically wide eyes and the earnest nod accompanying his words and finds herself smiling at the image.

"Why?"

"Temptation Lane, Nebula 9, your taste…" he sighs a little and she shakes her head, phone still pressed to her ear.

"Says the man sleeping in pajamas with little aliens on them."

"Mulder would be proud," he retorts.

"Who is Mulder?" she grins at his shocked gasp.

"Your words hurt."

"I'm kidding of course I know the X-files."

"You never know," he replies.

"Oh this scene is good," she redirects their focus to the show currently playing on the TV. She remembers watching this exact episode a couple years ago when she was still in training and a suspect had thrown her over a car and she was left tending her wounds at home.

Alone.

"Are they together?" Castle asks in reference to the arguing couple on the screen.

"They had an affair," she explains.

"Oh."

"Yeah he kind of reminds me of an old boyfriend of mine though," she says, cocking her head at the man in scrubs.

"Do tell," he sounds a little too excited and she finds herself rolling her eyes at his voice from the phone once again.

"His name was Josh, he was a Doctor, never really there, though, it was also kind of what I needed."

"Being able to say you're not alone when in reality you were?" he defines it a little too easily and once again she is left to wonder why in silence.

"Yeah."

"Yeah," he echoes.

"He looks like he is a Dementor, trying to suck her soul out with that kiss," she points at the TV even though she knows he can't see her.

"A Harry Potter reference I am so proud."

"You're not the only one able to come up with references you know."

"Oh I didn't mean that. I meant that you also know something that requires good taste."

She'd slap him if he were here.

But for now she just smiles and tucks the blanket around herself a little tighter.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading and to those that have left me words of encouragement and kindness. I hope you know that your lovely words are always appreciated and that I thank each one of you sweet people for making me smile.


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